alice won't choose the yellow road
by slam a revolving door
Summary: [Oneshot] 'She sees him at a party one day, in a haze of smoke and something else that good girls shouldn’t know. But Petunia’s stopped being a good girl years ago, so it doesn’t really matter that she does.'


**title: **alice won't choose the yellow road (she'll let the cat choose instead)  
**rating: **pg 13 for angst, drugs and non-romance. and implied sexual situations.  
**characters: **petunia, sort of petunia/vernon, past petunia/oc  
**word count**: 1045  
**a/n: **for the fraternizing ficathon on lj..  
**prompt: **"There is no romance in suffocation." _'This is Pressure'_ Eskimo Joe

she's taking her time making up the reasons  
to justify all the hurt inside  
_to the moon and back _savage garden

It's that time of the year again; the house is quiet, but full of her parents' gazes _why couldn't you be like Lily_, and she hates it. They don't say it, but she can read it in their eyes between the _we love the two of you _and _we're one big happy family, right?_

But they don't reproach her, even when she stays out late – she's _sixteen, _after all – and comes home smelling of smoke and sweat and _category: other_. And maybe she resents them for that too.

- - -

Something she'll never tell them? She doesn't actually smoke.

- - -

She sees him at a party one day, in a haze of smoke and something else that good girls shouldn't know. But Petunia's stopped being a good girl years ago, so it doesn't really matter that she does. Between them, there's a couple pressed up against each other, and a boy in black sprawled on the floor. His glass is tipped over and clear liquid is seeping into the carpet.

She laughs, because that's the way she feels.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him watching her, a dark, tragic figure. He's more of a man than a boy, though really, he's not either. That's okay though, because she's not a woman either.

If she's honest, she's just a girl lost in a grown-up world, like poor little Alice.

(he grins like the Cheshire cat, but his world is the Mad Hatter's)

- - -

It's not two paths, but it is a dark, dark wood, and poor little Petunia won't ever find her way out again.

Right?

- - -

The owl leaves her windowsill, and she watches as it fades into the recesses of her mind, slipping between the cracks. The letter is crumpled in her hand, and she lets it fall onto her desk carelessly. She grabs her coat and slips out of the room.

The door doesn't creak behind her, and neither does the third step from the bottom.

- - -

Vernon is a rich boy with ambitions, and so this Petunia is a good supportive girl. "There'll be a time," he tells her, "when I'll give this all up. This is just a hiatus, you know?"

He uses big words sometimes and expects her not to understand them. She plays along.

But really? The word she doesn't understand is_ this_.

And _them._ Who are_ they_?

(who is she?)

- - -

''Mine,' he says, grin spreading. He's looking at the glass she's clutching in her hand, but –

"Yours," she says faintly, as his fingers close around hers, pressing them into the glass.

The boy on the floor shifts and there's a clink, and _his_ hand is on her back.

- - -

She cries the first time Lily leaves, because the house is so empty. But she gets letters as consolation; she gets news of accomplishments and whining, and three years from then, she gets chocolate, she gets lollipops and she gets socks.

She also gets used to it.

- - -

He's rough and unyielding, but she doesn't mind, because when he kisses her, she becomes less her and more _his_. And _his _Petunia isn't jealous or lonely, and she's knows what she wants and it's him. _Does he even know her name? _floats on the surface of her thoughts, but she doesn't pull away.

And come to it, neither does he, because it's the time of the big bad wolf, but this little Red Riding Hood isn't looking for her family and she isn't lost.

That's what she wants to believe anyway.

- - -

She's going to crash and burn. Or has that already happened?

- - -

"That's _mine_," Vernon says accusingly and she freezes, relinquishing hold on the box immediately. They both wince as it crashes to the floor.

"Yours," she breathes, and excuses herself.

When she glances back (because she always glances back), the contents of the box are spread all over the floor. She can empathise with that.

- - -

She wakes up the next morning, and he's gone. She doesn't expect to see him again, because she's realistic like that.

But she – _it - _hurts.

- - -

"That's _mine,_" Vernon tells her again, and she feels like she's going to choke on his bluster.

She nods instead. "Yours."

- - -

"That's _mine_," Dudley whines, reaching for the beach ball. She looks at him, past him, at the waves crashing on the shore.

"Yours," she says tiredly.

- - -

She watches the neighbours through the windows and over the fence. It's _their _life and it's _their _house, but it's nice to know that _they _have no say over whether she observes them or not.

They learn to close the curtains eventually. _Theirs._

- - -

They've both had more than a few drinks and he presses his fingers to her mouth. She's recovering from a cold and her nose is still blocked up, but she won't tell him, because it's not a romantic thing to say (and despite everything, little Petunia still wants to be like Sleeping Beauty; like Cinderella). She can't really say anything with his fingers pressed against her lips anyway, but for a moment, it feels like – not like she's drowning, but like she's not there anymore.

Like she doesn't need air anymore.

And it's painful and it hurts, but she's not going to say anything, and moments later his mouth closes over hers, and somehow she can breathe again.

The pain doesn't stop though.

- - -

"Don't do that," Vernon tells her.

"Mummy, _don't!_" Dudley wails.

Sometimes she understands how Schrodinger's cat felt, and why Houdini managed to find the will to escape so many times.

But Petunia is the cat, not the man, and she's not getting out of there alive.

Besides, she loves them.

- - -

She looks at her nephew, looks at little Harry. Looks at her brother-in-law and, as Harry opens his eyes, looks at her sister. She sees ghosts for the first time, and they're not white or translucent, they're chubby and real. But they cry, and they haunt too.

- - -

Later, when he's older, she watches as he crawls out of the broom cupboard, and watches as he grows up resenting Vernon and Dudley. And her. And rightly so – they've got him trapped, got him confined to less than a cupboard.

She could release him.

But Petunia's learned. There's no romance in suffocation – no – and there's no love either.

She doesn't love Harry.

- - -


End file.
